Why did Socrates compare himself to a gadfly? Because he only wished to have ethical significance. He did not wish to be admired as a genius standing apart from others, and fundamentally, therefore, make the lives of others easy, because they could then say ‘it is all very fine for him, he is a genius’. No, he only did what every man can do, he only understood what every man can understand. Therein lies the epigram. He bit hard into the individual man, continually forcing him and irritating him with his ‘universal’. He was a gadfly who provoked people by means of the individual's passion, not allowing him to admire indolently and eeminately, but demanding his self of him. If a man has ethical power people like to make him into a genius, simply to be rid of him, because his life expresses a demand.